Big fish

Hi all

Your RHO (North) opens 1. Yawn…

East
AJT
AQ8
J863
953

West
North
East
South
 
1
pass
1
pass
2
pass
pass
double1
pass
22
3
pass
pass
…pass3
 

1. All blacks takeout
2. What else?
3. I’m fairly certain this is too high, but I don’t dare…

Partner starts with the Ace and switches to a .

North
K72
KJ93
QT74
K2
 
East
AJT
AQ8
J863
953
 

Surprising developments. And things get better when declarer tries the King of . I take the trick with the Ace and return the Jack of as Lavinthal. Hoek ruffs and returns a for my Ten. Partner surely doesn’t have five (he would have bid them) so I cash the Jack too and give Hoek another ruff, with a heartwarming Ten of (!). Hoek puts the cherry on the cake by throwing the Queen (number thirteen) into the arena, promoting my trump possession to three tricks. Down five.

North Dealer
– Vul
North
K72
KJ93
QT74
K2
West
Q853
T2
A
JT8764
East
AJT
AQ8
J863
953
South
964
7654
K952
AQ

Evidently there’s no question whether I should have doubled. Could I have known the fish was this big? Declarer scampered away with -250, wiping away his sweaty relief for not getting doubled.

2 thoughts on “Big fish”

  1. At Star 21 pairs out of 33 played in hearts, two of them in 4. 4 -5 was the only one of the lot that got doubled. At IMPS it’s just too hard to double.

    For the curious, EW played four times: 3 doubled -1 wasn’t it, but 1NT +2 (without a diamond start or switch you always make 3NT) and 3 +2 or 4 doubled +1 were. Apparently you also can bid 5 instead of 2 ;-) The remainder were NS pairs playing either 3 -2 (one of them doubled, which is easier to do) and 6 in 1NT (half making, half down; one pair was down 5, imagine that!)

    With 21 points, it’s a sick hand for NS.

  2. You cannot double 3, unless you already know your opponents are as ridiculous as they seem to be on this hand. 3 by South is unbelievable bad bidding.
    Normal NS pairs will have nine hearts for their bidding and when NS have the same honours with the honours in south 3 will be an easy make (especially with the spades 4-2).

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